Born ABT
1500, was perhaps the natural son of George
Savage, rector of Davenham, Cheshire, by Elizabeth Frodsham, who was afterwards married to Edmund Bonner, a sawyer of Hanley in
Worcestershire. Educated at Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, Oxford,
graduating bachelor of civil and canon law in Jun 1519. He was ordained about
the same time, and admitted DCL in 1525. In 1529 he was Wolsey's chaplain, and he was
with the Cardinal at Cawood at the time of
his arrest. Subsequently he was transferred, perhaps through Cromwell's influence, to the
service of the King, and in Jan 1532 he was sent to Rome to obstruct
the judicial proceedings against Henry VIII in the papal curia. In Oct 1533 he was
entrusted with the unmannerly task of intimating to Clement VII, while he was the guest of Francois I at Marseilles, Henry's appeal from the Pope to a general council; but there seems to be no good authority
for Burnet's story that Clement
threatened to have him burnt alive. For these and other services Bonner had been rewarded by the grant
of several livings, and in 1535 he was made archdeacon of Leicester.

Towards
the end of that year he was sent to further what he called "the cause
of the Gospel" (Letters and Papers, 1536, No. 469) in North Germany;
and in 1536 he wrote a preface to Gardiner's 'De vera Obedientia',
which asserted the royal, denied the papal supremacy, and was received with
delight by the Lutherans. After a brief embassy to the Emperor Carlos V in the spring of 1538, Bonner superseded Gardiner at Paris, and began his
mission by sending Cromwell a long list of
accusations against his predecessor. He was almost as bitter against Wyatt and Mason, whom he denounced as a "papist", and
the violence of his conduct led Francois
I to threaten him with a hundred strokes of the halberd. He seems,
however, to have pleased his patron, Cromwell, and perhaps Henry, by his energy in seeing the King's "Great" Bible in English through the
press in Paris. He was already King's chaplain; his appointment at Paris had been
accompanied by promotion to the see of Hereford, and before he returned to take possession he was translated
to the bishopric of London (Oct 1539).

Hitherto
Bonner had been known as a
somewhat coarse and unscrupulous tool of Cromwell, a sort of
ecclesiastical Wriothesley, He is not known to have
protested against any of the changes effected by his masters; he professed to
be no theologian, and was wont, when asked theological questions, to refer his
interrogators to the divines. He had graduated in law, and not in theology.
There was nothing in the Reformation to appeal to him, except the repudiation
of papal control; and he was one of those numerous Englishmen whose views were
faithfully reflected in the Six Articles. He became a staunch Conservative,
and, apart from his embassy to the Emperor in 1524-1543, was mainly occupied
during the last years of Henry's reign in brandishing the "whip with
six strings".

The
accession of King Edward VI, opened a fresh and more
creditable chapter in Bonner's
career. Like Gardiner, he could hardly
repudiate that royal supremacy, in the establishment of which he had been, so
active an agent; but he began to doubt that supremacy when he saw to what uses
it could be put by a Protestant council, and either he or Gardiner evolved the theory that
the royal supremacy was in abeyance during a royal minority. The ground was
skillfully chosen, but it was not legally nor constitutionally tenable. Both he
and Gardiner had in fact sought fresh
licences to exercise their ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the young King; and, if he was supreme enough to confer
jurisdiction, he was supreme enough to issue the injunctions and order the
visitation to which Bonner
objected. Moreover, if a minority involved an abeyance of the royal supremacy
in the ecclesiastical sphere, it must do the same in the temporal sphere, and
there could be nothing but anarchy. It was on this question that Bonner came into conflict with Edward's government.

He
resisted the visitation of Aug 1547, and was committed to the Fleet; but he
withdrew his opposition, and was released in time to take an active part
against the government in the parliament of Nov 1547. In the next session, Nov
1548-Mar 1549, he was a leading opponent of the first Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer. When these became law, he neglected to enforce
them, and on 1 Sep 1549 he was required by the council to maintain at St Paul's
Cross that the royal authority was as great as if the King were forty years of
age. He failed to comply, and after a seven days' trial he was deprived of his
bishopric by an ecclesiastical court over which Cranmer presided, and was sent
to the Marshalsea. The fall of Somerset in the following month
raised Bonner's hopes, and he
appealed from Cranmer to the council. After a
struggle the Protestant faction gained the upper hand, and on 7 Feb 1550 Bonner's deprivation was confirmed by
the council sitting in the Star Chamber, and he was further condemned to perpetual
imprisonment.

He was
released by Mary's accession, and was at
once restored to his see, his deprivation being regarded as invalid and Ridley as an intruder. He
vigorously restored Roman Catholicism in his diocese, made no difficulty about
submitting to the papal jurisdiction which he had forsworn, and in 1555 began
the persecution to which he owes his fame and nick name 'Bloody Bonner'. His apologists explain that his
action was merely "official", but Bonner was one of those who brought it to pass that the
condemnation of heretics to the fire should be part of his ordinary official
duties. The enforcement of the first Book of Common Prayer had also been part of his official duties; and
the fact that Bonner made no
such protest against the burning of heretics as he had done in the former case
shows that he found it the more congenial duty. Tunstall was as good a Catholic
as Bonner; he left a different
repute behind him, a clear enough indication of a difference in their deeds.

On the
other hand, Bonner did not go
out of his way to persecute; many of his victims were forced upon him by the
council, which sometimes thought that he had not been severe enough. So
completely had the state dominated the church that religious persecutions had
become state persecutions, and Bonner
was acting as an ecclesiastical sheriff in the most refractory district of the
realm. Even Foxe records
instances in which Bonner failed
to persecute. But he had no mercy for a fallen foe; and he is seen at his worst
in his brutal jeers at Cranmer, when. he was entrusted
with the duty of degrading his former chief. It is a more remarkable fact that,
in spite of his prominence, neither Henry VIII nor Mary should ever have admitted him to the Privy
Council. He seems to have been regarded by his own party as a useful
instrument, especially in disagreeable work, rather than as a desirable
colleague.

On her
accession Elizabeth refused to allow him to
kiss her hand; but he sat and voted in the parliament and convocation of 1559.
In May he refused to take the oath of supremacy, acquiring like his colleagues
consistency with old age. He was sent to the Marshalsea, and a few years later
was indicted on a charge of praemunire on refusing the oath when tendered him
by his diocesan, Bishop Home of
Winchester. He challenged the legality of Home's consecration, and a special act of parliament was passed to
meet the point, while the charge against Bonner was withdrawn. He died in the Marshalsea on 5 Sep 1569, and
was buried in St George's, Southwark, at midnight to avoid the risk of a
hostile demonstration.